A reporter asked me today whether changes in party control mean that it’s going to be even harder to get bills though the General Assembly this year that attempt to address the illegal alien problem. My answer was that it shouldn’t, as many Democrats made a lot of promises during their campaigns that they’re going to address this issue, and if they keep their word it might create an opportunity for bi-partisan majorities on a number of issues. Checking the bills introduced during the pre-filing period, there’s some evidence that this well may be the case.

Check out this proposal by Delegate-elect Paul Nichols, a Democrat, in the 51st District:

1. That § 2.2-4317 of the Code of Virginia is amended and reenacted and that the Code of Virginia is amended by adding a section numbered 2.2-4308.2 as follows:

A. Any nongovernmental contractor entering into a public contract with a public body, and any person that subcontracts with such contractor to perform work or provide services pursuant to such public contract, shall register and participate in the federal Electronic Work Verification Program or similar electronic verification of work authorization program operated by the United States Department of Homeland Security to verify information of newly hired employees pursuant to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (8 USC 1101 et seq.).

B. Any governmental contractor or subcontractor described in subsection A shall verify through the federal Electronic Work Verification Program or similar electronic verification of work authorization program that all of (i) its employees and (ii) the individual independent contractors with which it contracts to perform work or provide services pursuant to such public contract or subcontract, are legally eligible for employment in the United States.

C. No governmental contractor or subcontractor described in subsection A shall employ or continue to employ an individual, or contract independently with an individual to perform work or provide services pursuant to such public contract, who is not determined to be legally eligible for employment in the United States as determined through the contractor’s or subcontractor’s verification of the individual’s status through the federal Electronic Work Verification Program or similar electronic verification of work authorization program.

D. Any business that violates any provision of this section shall be debarred from contracting with any public body for a period of one year. In addition, the public contract or subcontract that the business had entered into with the public body, pursuant to which the violation of this section arose, shall be immediately terminated.

The largest employer of illegal aliens in Virginia is government. The Delegate that wants to fix this particular problem is a Democrat. Anyone who thinks this is strictly a partisan issue is wrong, although Brian Moran and Governor Kaine sure seem to be working overtime to make that appear to be the case. The harder Kaine and Moran try to do this, the more they encourage some strong internal divisions within the Democratic party that will undermine any ability they may have to control what happens in the Senate this year.

I don’t think this is going to be the only strong bill on the illegal alien issue to be introduced by Democrats, but this sure is one example of a bi-partisan consensus that recognizes that we face a problem here and that the Commonwealth can play an effective role in combating the effects of illegal immigration. As additional elected officials from the other side of the aisle follow through on their campaign promises, we should see proposals from junior members of the caucus, such as George Barker, right up to the most senior ones such as Chuck Colgan.

More bills introduced during the pre-filing period are expected to appear on the General Assembly’s website, and it should be very interesting to see how many of these show up with Democrats as sponsors. I doubt that Paul Nichols is the only delegate to recognize some of these problems and want to address them, and keep his campaign promises in doing so.

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7 Comments

This is an excellent start for the Honorable Paul Nichols. I am looking forward to seeing more good things like this from him. Let’s hope that he stays the course and not get sucked into the hard-core Dems claws once he gets down to Richmond!!! Will be tough to label HIM a racist!!!

If they try that, Nichols would have an opportunity to switch to the Republican party, which would pretty much seal off any efforts to effectively challenge him. I doubt anyone from the Dem side could ever effectively challenge him in a primary, and if he ran as a Democrat-turned-Republican who was pushed out of the party by a liberal group out of touch with his electorate, he would be darned near unassailable.

Nichols should easily be able to stand up to any arm-twisting of this sort. If the DPVA pisses him off, he has the ultimate trump card that DPVA absolutely would never want him to play.

You are both absolutely right…I’ve personally spoken to Paul about the issue of “manipulation” and arm-twisting…it’s not going to happen with him!!! I’m sure we won’t agree with Paul on every issue, but I honestly believe that he is far more interested in doing the best thing for the state and our country rather than any political party.

It would be nice to see Brother Colgan sponsor this or its equivalent in the Senate.

The bill is good, but it should have required any government contractor or subcontractor to verify its entire labor force, not just those employees working on gummint contracts. It should also have provided for a life-time debarring of a company, and its owners doing business under another company, for subsequent violations.

A provision sponsored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, would modify the law that requires at least two layers of fencing and specifically spelled out where that fencing should be built in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona.

1. There’s the “lettuce” argument — we’ll be paying $5/head (or starving) if we don’t have illegal aliens working in the fields. As Phil Martin, ag economist at UC Davis shows, the field labor cost in a $1 head of lettuce is about 6 cents. Triple those wages and Americans will do the jobs. (They’re not career positions. They’re seasonal jobs for young people, starting in the world of work. Growing up in Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s, I did similarly menial jobs.) And you’ll be paying 10% more for lettuce and other produce. Do you spend $1,000/year on produce? OK, you’ll pay $100 more.

The lettuce argument also parallels that for the retention of slavery.

2. There’s the “everyone’s an immigrant except for the ‘Native Americans’” argument. Well, the American Indians didn’t sprout from the land, they came across the Bering land bridge from Asia. So if the criterion is “You’re an immigrant if you had an ancestor who immigrated here,” then American Indians are immigrants, too.

In that case, “immigrant” is no longer a useful word, since EVERYONE’s an immigrant.

But actually, I’m not an immigrant — I was born in Chicago and have no other “native land” to return to. And, surely, most of the commenters here aren’t immigrants.

3. There’s the “the U.S. stole the southwest” argument. Well, the land in dispute was “owned” by Spain for a couple of centuries. Then by Mexico for about 25 years. During these periods, there weren’t more than a few thousand Spaniards or Mexicans in the entire territory. It’s been owned by the U.S. for about 160 years now, much longer than Mexico’s reign. And the U.S. has actually done something with the land, made it habitable for tens of millions. As Robert Kaplan has described, the difference between American and Mexican “twin cities” straddling the border is like night and day, yet the land is obviously the same. It’s not the dirt that’s important, it’s the people. Put another way, if culture didn’t matter, Mexico and Central America would be paradise.

4. There’s the “illegal aliens pay tons of taxes” argument. Sure, they all pay real estate taxes (in rent) and sales taxes (most states). Those working on the books (typically using stolen Social Security numbers) pay FICA and, perhaps, income taxes. But they’re mostly ill-educated and low-skilled and pay very low taxes connected to their working — in fact, many claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, i.e. negative income tax! If a family with both parents working has two kids in school, that’s at least $15k/year just for schooling, way more than the taxes on, say, $35k/year aggregate income.

Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation has done the systematic accounting on all this. A typical household headed by a low-skilled illegal alien is a net drain of about $20k/year for the rest of us, year after year. (Low-skilled Americans are a similar burden, but they’re part of the national family, not gate crashers from other societies.)

5. There’s the “illegal immigration is bad, but legal immigration is terrific” argument. Nope. If that were the case, legalizing (i.e. amnestying) the illegal aliens would solve the problem. But they’d still be (on average) low-skilled workers whose burden on the rest of us would continue. In fact, once legal they’d be able to access more public benefits programs, so their cost to the rest of us would actually rise substantially.

In short, most of the problems of mass illegal immigration are shared by mass legal immigration.

Finally, I offer my distilled observations of what mass immigration is doing to our country based on living in southern California 1996 - 2005, before I fled the madness:

- The flood of immigrants drives wages and living conditions in our central cities toward those of the Third World.

- The influx imposes both sprawl and gridlock on our metropolitan areas.